Summit Volunteer First Aid Squad: 52 years of helping neighbors

SUMMIT — Two years ago, the Summit Volunteer First Aid Squad celebrated 50 years of serving the residents of Summit.

Before Summit had its own volunteer squad, residents relied on Overlook Hospital and the Summit Fire Department, each of which had an ambulance, to provide their emergency transportation.

Still, since those ambulances weren’t available 24 hours a day, every day, police relied on Chatham’s and Millburn’s volunteer emergency squads to help. In 1961, those towns complained about Summit’s excessive use.

That’s when two women, Sis Barker and Betty Bangs, both members of the Junior League of Morristown and Summit, assisted by businessman Michael J. Formichella, decided to start a volunteer first aid squad in Summit.

For the first two years of its existence, the squad kept its single ambulance, a Cadillac, in Formichella’s garage at 233 Broad St. Trustee and Squad Historian Kari Phair said, “Ironically, that’s where we’re going back to” probably in May, when the current squad headquarters is torn down and construction on a new, modern facility begins. Salerno Duane has offered space to the squad to use during the construction phase.

Back in the ’60s, the squad’s slogan was, “A contribution is a big insurance for your family, your employee and you, when you need it most.” Today it’s “Neighbor Helping Neighbor,” said Squad President John Christmann.

More than the slogan has changed. In the 1960s there was no certified Emergency Medical Technician designation. Ambulances essentially were used to provide transportation to the hospital. When someone wanted an ambulance, they called a seven-digit phone number that went to the police station and was then sent to the squad members.

The squad provided “Holiday Service” in the early days. Members would bring bedridden Summit residents downstairs so they could attend holiday dinners in their homes, Phair said. They also responded to fewer calls. In the first six months the squad existed, it answered 640 calls, 34 of which were out of town and one of which was out of state.

Today, the squad answers more than 2,000 calls a year and it’s not unusual for some of them to be out of state or, in at least one case, out of the country. The squad will transport Summit residents who have been hospitalized back to Summit, said Christmann. Patients have been transported to Summit from Ontario Canada, Rhode Island, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio, just to name a few locations, said Phair.

Members received their basic first aid training from the Red Cross in Green Book in the 1960s; later they relied on the American Red Cross Five Point Training Program. In 1987 that changed. People who dealt directly with patients in the ambulance were required to be certified EMTs, which took about 20 hours of class time. Today, the training is significantly more detailed and can take more than 150 hours over a two-year period.

The equipment is different, also. Ambulances have gone from long vehicles that resembled hearses to the larger, boxier vehicles we see today, and they are filled with all sorts of equipment from oxygen to defibrillators and more.

Today's squad has about 60 active members, including its Junior members, and about 40 inactive members. That inactive number can include people who are temporarily inactive because they go south for the winter or are away at college during the school year. “We’ve always had a healthy membership,” said Christmann, who added there is always a need for more.

As for the biggest misconception about the squad, he said, it’s that “people assume we are part of the city, but we are not. We are a nonprofit individual agency and no taxpayer’s money” is used to support the squad. It is all donor-supported and most of the funds come from the squad's annual fund drive.

Currently, the First Aid Squad is conducting its first capital campaign in 50 years to raise funds for a new squad building. It's doing so with the help of a volunteer fundraising committee led by former mayor Jordan Glatt; Brett Haire, president of the Other Fellow First Foundation; and corporate partner Kevin Cummings, CEO of Investors Savings.

The goal of the campaign is to raise $5 million, of which $4.3 million was raised by the committee after almost a year of one-on-one fundraising. That leaves $700,000 left for the public campaign, which was announced Wednesday, March 19. Since that time, the public campaign has raised almost $100,000.